Is the U.S. the World's Largest State Sponsor of Terrorism?

Preface: As someone who was born in America and has lived here my whole life, and who loves the ideals and Constitution our country was founded on, it has been a rude and painful awakening to learn about my government's terrorist acts.

I believe that, if the American public knew what crimes the government was carrying out, they would not stand for it.

Four headlines this week make it clear that America may be the world's largest sponsor of terrorism:

• "Iran ... to sue U.S. . . . over mosque blast"

• "Neo-Con General Calls For Terror Attacks In Iran"

• "Iran Intercepts U.S. Terrorists Plotting Attack on Russian Consulate"

• "Rumsfeld On Tape: Terror Attack Could Restore Neo-Con Agenda"

This is on top of previous stories showing that Cheney is directly funding terrorist groups out of his office, and that the U.S. is funding terrorists all over the world to promote its agenda. See also this, this and this.

And Americans dressed as Arabs have apparently been setting off car bombs in Iraq (when it was discovered that some of the cars used in Iraqi bombings recently came from the U.S., the cover story seemed to become that American cars were involved in car bombings only because they had recently been stolen from the U.S. and then shipped to Iraq -- but does it make sense that Iraqi insurgents would steal cars in the U.S. and ship them all the way to Iraq?)

Unfortunately, this involvement in terrorism is not unique to the Bush administration:

• As documented by the New York Times, Iranians working for the C.I.A. in the 1950's posed as Communists and staged bombings in Iran in order to turn the country against its democratically-elected president (see also this essay)

• As confirmed by a former Italian Prime Minister, an Italian judge, and the former head of Italian counterintelligence, NATO, with the help of the Pentagon and CIA, carried out terror bombings in Italy and blamed the communists, in order to rally people’s support for their governments in Europe in their fight against communism. As one participant in this formerly-secret program stated: "You had to attack civilians, people, women, children, innocent people, unknown people far removed from any political game. The reason was quite simple. They were supposed to force these people, the Italian public, to turn to the state to ask for greater security."

No wonder the former director of the National Security Agency said "By any measure the US has long used terrorism. In ‘78-79 the Senate was trying to pass a law against international terrorism - in every version they produced, the lawyers said the US would be in violation"(the audio is here).

So next time the warmongers accuse a foreign country of sponsoring terrorism, remind them that - even if that is true - the U.S. is the world's largest state sponsor of terrorism.

In addition to being the leading sponsor of terrorism, the U.S. is also the largest purveyor of disinformation and propaganda in the world. Gangsters like Al Capone would be astonished at how successfully the American public has been fooled as to the nature of their government's actions.

As one of the leading American media critics says:

"Little has been done to address the astonishing ignorance of Americans regarding the US role in the world, [including] the extensive use of terrorism by the United States . . . ."